Around January 23, 1816

The beginning of the nineteenth century brought significant misfortune to Savannah, Georgia. While the city struggled to achieve public improvements and increase urban development, a disproportionate number of natural disasters struck, such as the hurricane of 1804. Incidents of yellow fever and cholera outbreak resulted in large-scale mortality and interference with business. A vast fire, on...

In a letter to her father, Louisiana Cocke wrote that she missed him and was looking forward to his return. Louisiana wrote, I begin to be quite impatient for your return, as I am anxious to return to my studies... This demonstrates the close relationship of General Cocke and his daughter. He also apparently, served as her tutor while he was home. Families in the antebellum South were close- knit...

As the United States' population exploded, the government continued to look westward to expand the country's wealth, power, and size. In some cases, US explorers tried to live alongside Native-Americans who called the West their home, but hostility from both peoples often caused conflict. Americans embraced the mindset that not only was it acceptable, but it was even their duty to organize...

On January 9, 1820, the people of Arkansas County had reason to be afraid; one of their neighbors had been found violently murdered. On that day, the coroner of Arkansas County held a formal inquest into the death of William Mabbet who had been found near Hickory Point. Curiously, Mabbet's body appeared heavily bruised and beaten, but showed no signs of resistance. If he had been attacked, should...

On January 29, 1820, M. W. deBree wrote a letter to her father to tell him some distressing news. Her letter detailed a very melancholy circumstance that very nearly occurred on a ship bound from Norfolk, Virginia to New Orleans, Louisiana. Thirty slaves who were passengers on the ship had form'd a plot...to murder all the passengers and crew except two sailors who [were] to steer them to St....

On 19 February 1820, the Boston Recorder published an article on an incident that occurred overseas in Australia. A pilot at Port Dalrymple was bitten by a venomous snake and thought to be a goner by onlookers. However, a native stepped in and turned what appeared to be a man awaiting death into a healthy human being once again. He allegedly rubbed the wound with an unknown bark, palpated...

South Carolina Governor and member of the House of Representatives, Charles Pinckney had been one of the youngest delegates of the Constitutional Convention in 1789. Pinckney remained a controversial political figure, due in part to his support of slavery. In 1820, he reacted to the attempts of some Northern congressmen to ban slavery from the Missouri Compromise. An example of the Northern position...

Joseph Bishop owned a mill on the Rivanna River from 1805 to the late 1820?s. He worked in the mill along with the family's two male slaves, and possibly with occasional help from his five sons. Bishop's mill supported his main economic activity, which was tanning leather. But Bishop sometimes allowed the use of his facilities to grind nearby farmers' grain, typically for free. Over...

The Governor of Richmond appointed William Bolling of Goochland County as Lieutenant Colonel in the Second Regiment of Cavalry on March 21, 1820. Bolling's appointment shows that the military was prominent in state forms as well as national forms in the period leading up to the Civil War. Qualities of the military include fidelity, courage, activity and good conduct - qualities that are still...

As a Congressman from Buckingham County and member of the Virginia House of Delegates, Archibald Austin was always in the know about local events. In a letter from Waller Taylor in Washington to Mr. Austin, Mr. Taylor explained the happenings in Washington and all of the current political events that were taking place, such as admitting new states and territories. In his March 25 letter, the Florida...